Dear Editor, Ustun (2020) used the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) to assess mood in respondents to a cross-sectional, online survey, conducted 2 weeks after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey. We believe that the findings of the survey need to be interpreted with caution. Online surveys advertised through multiple online channels and inviting voluntary participation are associated with two serious limitations: the target population is unknown and the sample is biased. With regard to the former limitation, there is no way of knowing whom the survey has and has not reached, and so there is no way of knowing to what population the results of the survey can be generalized; and generalization to the reported demographics of the respondents is fallacious because the method of sampling was non-random, so we cannot assume that persons who responded to the survey were representative of their population demographics (Ameen Praharaj, 2020). With regard to the latter limitation, besides obvious biases such as literacy and access to the internet, it is likely that persons with specific characteristics, such as mood disturbance, would have greater interest in the survey and would therefore select themselves into the sample, thereby biasing the findings (Menon Muraleedharan, 2020). The conclusion expressed by the authors in their abstract, that the Covid-19 pandemic caused mild-level depression in the Turkish society, is therefore presumptuous.
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